Childhood and Education by Martin Kelly and Melissa Kelly

William McKinley was born on January 29, 1843, in Niles, Ohio, to William McKinley Sr., a pig iron administrator, and Nancy Allison McKinley. McKinley attended public school and in 1852 went to the Poland Seminary. When he was seventeen, he enrolled in Allegheny College in Pennsylvania but soon dropped out due to illness. Unfortunately, he never returned to college because of financial difficulties. He taught school for a time before fighting in the Civil War. After the war ended, he studied law and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1867.